


c'mon darlin' (please take my hand)

by besidemethewholedamntime



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff, Marriage Proposal, Mild Hurt/Comfort, On the Run
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-11-28 03:42:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18203042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/besidemethewholedamntime/pseuds/besidemethewholedamntime
Summary: '“You fancy getting married again?”It’s so unbelievable. He picks this moment, where the full enormity of their situation is just settling on their shoulders, to ask her to shackle herself to him once more? She might love the man, sometimes more than she can believe, but his sense of timing has always been impeccably awful.'On the run and out of luck, yet Lance Hunter thinks it's the best time to ask to marry her again. A 5+1 in marriage proposals. Written for @secret-thirteen for the Most Wanted Fic Exchange!





	c'mon darlin' (please take my hand)

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Most Wanted Fic Exchange Day @secret-thirteen! I hope you like it! This was really fun to write - I love their dynamic so much! It was such a great prompt, and I managed to get most of your ideas in! Thank you!  
> Title is from 'Let's Get Married' by The Proclaimers.  
> I hope you enjoy!

He asks her day one of being on the run.

They’re in a pretty shady motel, off some pretty shady dirt track. Lance flips through the meagre selection of TV channels and declares them ‘bloody rubbish’ before flopping backwards onto the bed in a starfish.

Bobbi sorts through all of their possessions that they’ve brought with them, which fit into two backpacks. There’s some basic survival stuff that she hopes they won’t have to use. Two weapons. Fake passports. Some money in multiple currencies. An unhealthy number of jellybeans.

“Hey, Bob?” He asks her, and she’s so absorbed in the task of wondering how they’re going to survive off this that she doesn’t hear him until he calls her name a second time.

“What?!”

“You fancy getting married again?”

It’s so unbelievable. He picks this moment, where the full enormity of their situation is just settling on their shoulders, to ask her to shackle herself to him once more? She might love the man, sometimes more than she can believe, but his sense of timing has always been impeccably awful.

“I really can’t believe you’re asking me that,” she mutters, shoving stuff back into backpacks, gathering up the cheap shower gel and shampoo they bought, along with the paper-thin towel the motel provides.

“Wait, that a no, then?”

“I’m going for a shower,” she announces. “And before you ask: no, you cannot join.”

-x-

He asks her on a riverbank in Hungary.

Talking about the past, the life they’ve left behind, the fact that they’ve become the ghosts she knows nobody will mention makes her feel more than a little lost. Set adrift. Bobbi feels like if she were to step into the river the tide would just carry her away to lands unknown, and she’d just let it.

“We’ll be alright,” Lance tells her, reaching out to hold her hand.

“Sometimes it’s just like what’s even the point, you know? SHIELD was my purpose, and I’m just floating around, trying not to get caught by people I don’t even know.”

“I know the feeling.” His eyes are dark and she holds his hand, letting him know it’s okay to say more. “After I left the SAS. It was my whole life. Band of brothers, we were. Then I left and I had nothing. No purpose.”

It reminds her of why she was drawn to Lance in the first place. They’re so similar. It’s what drove them apart, too. With this whole ‘on the run’ thing, maybe they can find the place to start again. Properly this time.

“I guess we just have to find a new purpose.”

“Guess we do, love.”

His smile wavers, but it’s so genuine that is banishes the shadows from his eyes.

“How about we get married? That would be a good purpose?”

She laughs and shoves him gently. He makes himself fall over for dramatic effect and she thinks about pushing him in the river. But his eyes still hold the question, and she knows that he’s being genuine. She pretends she can’t see it.

“I’ve never imagined getting married in Hungary,” she says. “It’s not exactly Hawaii.”

“Got to be adventurous, love,” he tells her.

Bobbi just laughs and tells him the place that they’re going to drive to next.

-x-

The next time is in a hotel room in Paris.

They’re in bed. His arms make her feel safe. These days not a lot does. But he always can. For better or worse he always can.

“I know it’s cheesy, but I love you,” he murmurs into the skin of her shoulder. She likes how his stubble tickles against her skin. It stops her from going numb.

“I love you, too,” she whispers. It’s easier to stop her voice cracking.

“I loved you even when I hated you.”

The words make her stop for a moment, though it’s not a surprise. Bobbi knows that he hated her. He hated the way she couldn’t let go of her job for him, the way she kept all those secrets when he needed honesty from her.

And she couldn’t stand him, either. To her it was just so unsupportive. Lance had married her knowing exactly where she stood, for she had never hidden it. He had vowed to love her forever because of it, in spite of it. For him to then start fighting with her had hurt her more than she could say.

But now, reflecting back, she understands. After the life he’d had, he needed some honesty with the person he was going to share his life with. Too many secrets and too many half-truths to obscure accountability had left him frustrated and betrayed. He wanted someone who could love completely him. And she just couldn’t. And she doesn’t think he could love completely her either.

It’s always been their problem. Too similar. Too stubborn.

“Yeah,” she agrees, gently. “Me too.”

They fall asleep, holding each other lightly. In the middle of the night Lance begins to toss and turn with a nightmare. Bobbi’s eyes flutter open when she first hears is irregular breathing, and she’s awake fully the instant she feels arm brush hers.

The ferocity of his nightmares from things he’s seen and done, the way they have a hold on him completely, has always frightened her a little bit. Always she has wished to take it away from him, even when he called her a demonic hell beast and even when she threw him out. No matter what, Bobbi is sure he doesn’t deserve this.

When she wakes him up, gently cajoling and flicking on the light to show their shabby Paris hotel room, he takes a deep couple of breaths and flashes her a tired smile.

“Lifesaver,” her breathes, clapping her on the arm. “Marriage material.”

It’s not technically asking her, but when he says the word her chest gets awfully tight. Though not as much as it once did.

“You’re an idiot,” she says softly, cupping her hand around his face. “And you definitely wouldn’t know marriage material if it hit you in the face.”

“I don’t know. Think I did pretty well the first time.”

“Yeah,” she agrees, snuggling back down beside him. “I think you did.”

-x-

Only Lance Hunter would ask it in the middle of a firefight.

They didn’t exactly mean to pick a fight with the drug cartel, and especially not with the boss. It was a bit of a misunderstanding. It’s not as if they truck looked like it belonged to anyone, and it definitely did not look like it was filled with rather a lot of heroin.

“We should’ve taken some!” Lance shouts over to where Bobbi’s ducked behind some crates that will splinter in a second. “Could’ve made a fortune with that stuff!”

“Yeah, ‘cause they already loved us for taking the truck in the first place, never mind if we’d actually stolen some of their stuff!”

Lance ducks as a bullet whizzes far too close to his head. He looks at her incredulously. “This is officially the worst bloody holiday I’ve ever been on.”

“Wasn’t exactly meant to be a holiday,” she grumbles, knowing he won’t listen to her. She moves position and fires off two shots, looking to maim and not kill.

“’Oh, Mexico will be great!’,” he says, in a voice that she assumes is meant to mimic hers. “Great idea, love. Turned out brilliantly!”

A man appears behind Lance, then, and before he can even realise, before Bobbi can even breathe, she’s got him down and sorted out another one.

Lance looks behind him, down at the two men who were seconds away from ending his life, then back at her. He whistles. “Damn, woman. Killer reflexes.” He grins at her. “I should marry you for that.”

“You can’t marry me every time I save your ass.” Bobbi peeks out at the remaining cartel members, who are checking their ammunition and shaking their heads. God, she loves stupid criminals sometimes.

“I really could.”

She huffs and smiles at him, getting to her feet then helping him up. “No,” she says. “You couldn’t.”

-x-

“For the love of God, Bobbi, please, just marry me!”

“Well when you say it like that… no!”

Fighting. Again. It seems there’s only so long one can be on the run with Lance Hunter before he makes you want to pull out each individual strand of hair from frustration.

“I’m a catch, you know! A real catch. If I was to put myself on the market then someone would just snap me right up.”

“Then go right ahead! I’m really not stopping you.”

It’s been like this for a week now. Arguing about them getting married again. This time it was for an undercover operation they were going to do – because being disavowed means they can dole out their own justice. But it also means it’s just the two of them, nobody to mediate their arguments and pull the higher strings.

“You’re so bloody infuriating, you know that! It would make so much sense to just pop in, sign the thing, pop out. It makes it a whole lot easier to get into that place and you know it!”

“When we get married again I’m not doing it in a registry office in London with the cleaning lady as a witness! I don’t want it to be for some dumb mission!”

He stops, then looks at her. A slow grin crosses his face. Dammit, Bobbi.

“So, we’re getting married again? For real?”

“Maybe,” she huffs, in disbelief that she gave him this. “Now come on. Let’s think of another plan.”

He’s surprisingly easy-going during the rest of their planning, and she hears him singing horribly to himself in the shower. All she can do is roll her eyes, and maybe smile a little secretly to herself. Though when he starts crooning cheesy wedding songs, she wishes they’d go back to fighting.

+1

It goes quiet for a bit.

In order to preserve their sanity, they part ways for a couple of months, but under strict instructions to contact each other if things go wrong. They send messages in other ways, and it’s the only way they’re both able to sleep at night.

The first thing Lance does after they meet up again is pull her into a big hug. She doesn’t deny that it’s enjoyable, but the uncharacteristic tightness with which he holds her has her worried.

“Hey, you okay?” She asks softly.

“Yeah,” he says, voice deeper and accent stronger than it was. “Just was a rough thing there.”

(Later she’ll find out that he was with Fitz, and when she asks what he did he’ll say, ‘We saved the world, Bob. We saved the bloody world.’)

“I’m glad you’re alright,” he says, holding her tightly before pulling back.

“Yeah. I’m glad you’re alright, too.”

He does a nervous shuffle of his feet, twists his fingers around. “Marry me, Bob?”

His voice is so quiet, so sincere, that she says, “What?” because she simply thinks she’s misunderstood.

“Please.” He takes her hand within his. His hands, rough but warm and so familiar. “Marry me.”

Her heart stutters but not from fear or apprehension. She feels the corners of her mouth move upwards, feels her cheeks grow warm. “Of course.”

He kisses her then, as passionately as the man always does everything in his life. God, she loves him so much, but she can’t resist poking fun at him just one last time.

“You only had to ask, you know.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please feel free to leave kudos/comments. Please feel free not to. Either way, I hope you have a lovely day!


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